DO YOU HAVE AN APPOINTMENT ??

Please correct me if I am wrong, (and I have been known to be wrong once or twice in my seventy five years), but I always thought the point of making an appointment was so that you have a specific time to be in a specific place to complete a specific task.  By having an appointment all parties involved know ahead of time just who will be where at a particular time to do whatever.  That way everyone is prepared with the necessary tools to accomplish the task at hand. We make appointments with doctors so that the doctor will have our records and medical history all ready in order to access our current situation. We make appointments for job interviews, lunches with friends and at the Motor Vehicle Department. (Although that last one is a joke because you NEVER get out of the DMV in less than a day whether you have an appointment or not.)  We make appointments so that we can choose a time we like and so that the other parties involved are not waiting around twiddling their fingers waiting for us to show up or vice versa.   Appointments are GOOD ! 

 I like making appointments and filling in the little boxes on my calendar so that all I have to do is look at my calendar on the wall and know just what my week/day is going to involve.  I LOVE it when I can see an empty box on my calendar and know I have nothing planned for that particular day. It is like Christmas to have a "free" day and my mind runs rampant with the possibilities of what I will do with all that free time. (Usually those plans never come to fruition but its fun to dream.)  Likewise I like knowing a week ahead of time just where I need to be at a given time on a given day so that I can plan around those upcoming appointments.

SO . . . Why does The Man arrive at an appointment forty-five minutes early and then get pissed when he can not be seen immediately ?  This is my "Point to Ponder" for today.  

Every Tuesday and Thursday The Man has a standing appointment to attend an hour long session of Pulmonary Rehab at a hospital that is a forty-five minute drive away from his house.  This "class" that he attends has three hospital staff workers in attendance to monitor the people who are "working out".  The class runs from twelve noon until one o'clock. I don't know what the staff does before and after this class but I do know they are there for the pulmonary session from 12:00 -1:00.  It is during this ONE HOUR time slot that The Man is expected to be in attendance. 

How good are your math skills ?         If a train leaves the station heading East . . . .  OH Wait . . .  That's not the math problem I was talking about.      My math problem is: If a Man has an APPOINTMENT to attend a class at twelve noon and it will take him forty five minutes to drive to this class what time does he have to leave his house to get to the appointment on time?   According to my calculations I have deduced The Man should leave his house forty -five minutes before the noon appointment which would mean he should leave his house no later than eleven-fifteen.  Did I do the math correctly ?

I do realize that in order to get to an appointment on time one should usually factor in an extra fifteen to thirty minutes for the unexpected. There could be road construction, fog, car problems, traffic or an invading horde of Mongolian grass hoppers.  You just never know so it is always wise to leave a little extra travel time "JUST IN CASE".  So with all this in mind WHY does The Man begin pacing the kitchen "waiting" for me an hour and forty five minutes before his scheduled appointment?  I understand an HOUR before.    I understand FORTY-FIVE MINUTES before but NOT an hour AND forty-five minutes.

EVERY Tuesday and Thursday this is exactly what happens at ten fifteen each of those days . . . At about nine fifteen The Man wakes me up so that I can "GET READY" to ride with him to rehab.  As I have told you in the past I can get out of bed and be ready to roll in less than twenty minutes but he insists on waking me an hour and a half earlier.  (The fact that it is taken for granted that I will accompany The Man each Tuesday and Thursday has not been brought up for discussion. I do believe The Man is fully capable of making this trip ALONE but then again maybe he is not. So although I would MUCH rather have a couple of hours to myself while he is at rehab I ride along with him, sit in the car for an hour while he is in working out and then ride home with him. It is a great time for me to sit and so nothing, which I am becoming VERY good at, but is it really necessary?). 

After The Man wakes me, (he has been up for at least two hours at this point because it takes him that long to wake up and get ready), I get up and ready to go in about a half hour.  (I try to "drag my feet" in order to not be ready too soon otherwise we would be leaving the house at nine thirty.) By nine forty-five The Man is starting to get fidgety because, after all, he HAS been up and ready for at least three hours.  I purposely get something to eat for breakfast and take my time eating while he is now moving closer and closer to the door. So far I have managed to slow him down enough that we arrive at the twelve noon rehab appointment only forty five minutes early. Each day that we get there this early The Man is "surprised" that we are there so quickly.   DUH !   By the time he gets himself out of the car and into the facility he is at least a half hour early for the class.  

Little did the staff realize that when The Man arrived ten minutes early on the first day and they told him it was OK that this would escalate by five minutes each session. I figure by the middle of September we will be going to Rehab on Monday and Wednesday.